The German media are trying very hard not to relay the basic message of the Hutton report.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: 56 per cent of a poll by NOP for the "Evening Standard" called it unfair that the BBC was given the major part of the blame.

taz: The next Palace revolt and the next scandal - whatever the topic - are just around the corner. Tony Blair is a Prime Minister whose time is running out. He is perhaps the last to realize it.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung: Nevertheless, it is not an outstanding result for Blair. The majority of the population now believes that Blair - elected into office seven years ago as a man of moral renewal - does not take the truth seriously. The Hutton report will not change that.

Netzeitung: Loser Blair. ... Blair, too, is one of the losers. ... The Kelly affair has destroyed Blair's eternal smile.

Gemany's elite media - SPIEGEL ONLINE, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Stern, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, to name a few - over the course of several months have accused Tony Blair for lying about the decision making process preceding the Iraq war. David Kelly was their star witness, and their expectation of the Hutton report was a damning condemnation of the British government's policies.

... The 45 minutes claim was based on a report which was received by the SIS from a source which that Service regarded as reliable. Therefore, whether or not at some time in the future the report on which the 45 minutes claim was based is shown to be unreliable, the allegation reported by Mr Gilligan on 29 May 2003 that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong before the Government decided to put it in the dossier, was an allegation which was unfounded. ...

However in the context of the broadcasts in which the "sexing-up" allegation was reported and having regard to the other allegations reported in those broadcasts, I consider that the allegation was unfounded as it would have been understood by those who heard the broadcasts to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which was not the case. ...

The allegations reported by Mr Gilligan on the BBC Today programme on 29 May 2003 that the Government probably knew that the 45 minutes claim was wrong or questionable before the dossier was published and that it was not inserted in the first draft of the dossier because it only came from one source and the intelligence agencies did not really believe it was necessarily true, were unfounded. ...

Therefore in the very unusual and specific circumstances relating to Mr Gilligan's broadcasts, the Governors are to be criticised for themselves failing to make more detailed investigations into whether this allegation reported by Mr Gilligan was properly supported by his notes and for failing to give proper and adequate consideration to whether the BBC should publicly acknowledge that this very grave allegation should not have been broadcast. ...

There was no dishonourable or underhand or duplicitous strategy by the Government covertly to leak Dr Kelly's name to the media.

(emphasis added)

This is great stuff. The BBC's faulty reporting on the Kelly affair is disclosed - and at the same time it becomes obvious how biased the reporting of the German media on the same topic was.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's left-wing SPD is at an all-time historical low: the SPD would collect only 24 per cent if general elections were held now, according to the lastest opinion poll. That's 2 per cent less than a week before. The SPD's coalition partner, the Green Party, is at 9 per cent (-1 per cent). The two opposition parties, the conservative CDU/CSU (50 per cent) and the libertarian FDP (8 per cent), gained 1 per cent each.

Government-sponsored Deutsche Welle reports, it's a "Week from Hell" for ... Tony Blair! Hmm... I guess there's nothing Schroeder wouldn't do to be in Blair's shoes, this week or any other week...

(Deutsche Übersetzung: am Ende des Beitrags)
What's Europe's culpability in nurturing a nuclear black market?
The least one can say is that German technology is involved, as the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports. And the Dutch based research facility Urenco is a major supplier of nuclear technology to Pakistan and Iran. Urenco is a joint development of Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain, founded by their governments:

In the early 1970s the German, Dutch and British governments signed the Treaty of Almelo, an agreement under which the three partners would jointly develop the centrifuge process of uranium enrichment. Urenco Limited was established in 1971. ...
Today, Urenco is truly a global supplier of enrichment services, delivering more than 13% of the worldwide enrichment requirements. ...

Why aren't the German media focussing more on the supply link between a European nuclear facility (sponsored by the governments of Germany, the Netherlands and Great Britain) and North Korea and Libya? There are clear indications for this link:

Two Dutch ministers said on Monday there were "indications" North Korea and Libya may have acquired potentially arms-related nuclear technology developed by British-Dutch-German consortium Urenco that Pakistan and Iran are known to possess.

David Albright, a former IAEA inspector in Iraq who has closely tracked the Libyan investigation, said Libya's centrifuge supply network was similar to the one developed by Saddam Hussein in the late 1980s -- only much bigger.
"The fact that Libya could go out and buy an entire centrifuge plant without anyone detecting it is startling," said Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. "It represents a failure of the export-control system, and most certainly a failure of intelligence."

Whose export-control system, and whose intelligence? A few European governments might need some explanation to do... I'm just glad, President Bush has a bold nuclear containment strategy!

INTERVIEWER Are they (Saddam’s weapons) an immediate threat?
DAVID KELLY Yes, they are. Even if they’re not actually filled and deployed today, the capability exists to get them filled and deployed within a matter of days and weeks, and so yes, they’re a real threat.”

The airing of a television documentary featuring the late weapons expert Dr David Kelly has dealt another blow to the Blair government. ...
In the interview, the weapons expert stated that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within days or weeks, rather than the 45 minutes initially mentioned in the controversial government dossier.

I don't have yet a complete picture of the reactions of the German media to President Bush's "State of the Union" address. What I have read and seen so far is fairly predictable: Bush used the speech to improve his reelection chances (how unfair!); he was less specific than in 2003 about Saddam's WMD (actually, he wasn't very specific in 2003 either, since nobody knew exactly what Saddam was hiding); Bush's tax cuts aren't likely to improve economic growth (Germany is really not in a position to lecture others on topcis as economic growth or job creation); Bush targeted the Christian right by denying homosexual couples the right to good old traditional heterosexual marriage (how shocking - except it's not the law of the land in Germany either).

If there is one person worth quoting from, it is the adorable Bush-hater Marc Pitzke (SPIEGEL ONLINE). Watching Bush entering Congress he observes a sinister coup by Bush's spin doctors. Pitzke complains that Bush kissed an "election campaign baby", that was handed to him by a Representative, "a black baby, politically correct". Well, Washington correspondent Malte Lehming knows the real story:

"Bush ... briefly paused at a Representative from Illionois, the "African-American" Jesse L. Jackson Jr. He had brought his three year old daughter with him. Bush took her in his arm."

What a conspiracy! Bush and a Democrat, the son of Reverend Jesse Jackson! Just glad, Pritzke noticed that Bush is using an Afro-American Democrat's baby for his narrow political purposes. I mean, is nothing sacred anymore for these neo-conservatives?

WITH ALMOST 150 COMMENTS THIS THREAD HAS BECOME TOO LONG. I THEREFORE HAVE TRANSFERRED IT TO "READ-ONLY" STATUS. IF YOU WANT TO POST ADDITIONAL COMMENTS - AND YOU ARE HIGHLY WELCOMED TO DO SO - PLEASE GO TO THIS POSTING.

(Discussion thread: please scroll down - most comments are in English, a few are in German)

This is an excerpt from an E-Mail I received from Scott. Scott addresses the apparent contradiction between anti-Americanism in Germany and the success of American music, movies, clothes, etc., in the country. Any comments?

I am writing an argumentative essay for an English class and I was wondering if I might ask you a couple of questions.

I have been living in Germany on and off for the last 15 years. I am a soldier and it seems that Germany has really become angry at Americans in the last two years. I plan on writing why I think this is and want to persuade others who read my essay to take notice of this. I want to keep this email short and request a couple of good reasons why you think this might be.

I understand that they do not like President Bush's policies but their anger goes far beyond just politics. They are using the politics as an excuse.

Question 1: It seems that Germans are fundamentally against anything or anyone American in general. One example is casual conversation with Germans and even going into a book store, they will have the main display of anything Anti-American.